Repost of a glorious photo from Rien…
Shirley has everything!
Thanks to Scot
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I (Who Have Nothing)
Music written by Carlo Donida
English lyrics by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Recorded: September 6, 1963
Released: UK: September, 1963 on Columbia single DB 7113
US: March 10, 1964 on United Artists single UA 699
Charted: single UK: #6, September 26, 1963
Shirley Bassey reached position number six in the UK single charts and stayed in the charts for 20 weeks
Originally this was the Italian song “Uno Dei Tanti”
Since the 1960s Shirley Bassey has sung this song in many concert and therefore it is available on many collections, live recordings and videos
It has also been recorded together with the London Symphony Orchestra on the album I Am What I Am
This recording has the wonderful long finale with the solo trumpet featured at live concerts too, but this is not on the original recording
Another orchestral arrangement is from the 1989 album La Mujer where Shirley Bassey sings this song in Spanish: Hoy No Tengo Nada
In 1972 a new English studio recording was released on an extremely scarce DJ-only promo record, but this recording has never been officially released
Other artists that have performed this song and have reached US Billboard chart positions have been Ben E. King who has reached position number 29 1963
Tom Jones climbed to No. 14 in the charts 1970
In 1979 Sylvester (James) reached No. 40 in the charts with this song
In a concert in The Netherlands in 1980 Shirley Bassey said before singing “I (Who Have Nothing)”:
“This is an ideal moment to sing a song Tom Jones stole from me. Well, I gave it to him… I couldn’t resist!”
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For a decade, from the mid-’50s to the mid-’60s, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were the most successful song writing team in popular music, writing hits for groups like the Coasters and the Drifters and giving Elvis Presley some of his best material
Their songs included for example “Love Potion #9,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Spanish Harlem,” and “Stand By Me”
A Broadway musical revue called “Smokey Joe’s Cafe” opened 1995 and it contains 38 of the songs of Leiber / Stoller, including “I (Who Have Nothing)”. Premiere of the musical was on Thursday, March 2nd, 1995 at the Virginia Theatre in New York
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Lyrics
I, I who have nothing
I, I who have no one;
Adore you and want you so
I’m just a no one, with nothing to give you but oh…
I love you
You, you buy her diamonds,
bright, sparkling diamonds.
But believe me, dear, when I say that she can give you the world
(sometimes: That you can give her the world)
but she’ll never love you the way,
I love you
You can take her any place she wants
to fancy clubs and restaurants;
But I can only watch you with
My nose pressed up against the window pane…
I, I who have nothing
I, I who have no one;
Must watch you, go dancing by
wrapped in the arms of somebody else
when darling ’tis I
Who love you
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